๐ 'Learn, too, to be grateful.
๐ May all the wealth of Christ's inspiration have its shrine among you; now you will have instruction and advice for one another, full of wisdom, now there will be psalms, and hymns, and spiritual music, as you sing with gratitude in your hearts to God. Whatever you are about, in word and action alike, invoke always the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, offering your thanks to God the Father through him.'
๐ฎ Colossians 3:16-17
๐ 'Would that I could exhaust myself in acts of thanksgiving and gratitude towards this Divine Heart, for the great favor He shows us, in deigning to accept our help to make Him known, loved and honored; He reserves infinite blessings for all those who devote themselves to this work.'
๐ฎ St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
๐ 'But it was not so much the sorrows of his Passion which saddened and embittered the life of our Redeemer, as the sight of all the sins which men would commit after his death. These were the cruel executioners which made him live in continual agony, oppressed by such an overwhelming grief that pain alone would have been enough to make him die of pure sorrow. Father Lessius says that the sight alone of the ingratitude of mankind would have been sufficient to make Jesus Christ die of grief a thousand times.'
๐ฎ St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
๐ 'So great a love on the part of Mary deserves our gratitude, and that gratitude should be shown by at least meditating upon and pitying her in her sorrow. But she complained to Saint Bridget that very few did so, and that the greater part of the world lived in forgetfulness of them: "I look around at all who are on earth, to see if by chance there are any who pity me, and meditate upon my sorrows; and I find that there are very few. Therefore, my daughter, though I am forgotten by many, at least do thou not forget me; consider my anguish, and imitate, as far as thou canst, my grief."'
๐ฎSt. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
๐ 'See, My daughter, whether thou canst find a father whose love for his only son has prompted him to take care of him or to show him such tender proofs of his love as I have given and will yet give thee of Mine; for from thy earliest years My love has borne kindly with thee, and has trained and formed thee after My own Heart, awaiting thee patiently without growing weary of all thy resistance.
๐ Know, therefore, that if ever thou shouldst forget the gratitude thou owest Me and shouldst not refer the glory of everything to Me, thou wouldst thereby, as regards thyself, dry up this inexhaustible source of all good.'
๐ฎThe Lord, to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
๐ 'A man wanted to do evil, but first prayed as usual; and finding himself prevented by God, he was then extremely thankful.'
๐ฎ St. Mark the Ascetic
